British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) employees are in “open revolt” over the “meddling for political reasons” by top executives of news coverage about Gaza. The BBC claims to be the “world’s most trusted broadcaster,” but apparently its own employees disagree.
Over 400 BBC employees and other journalists have signed an open letter (this letter was posted for public viewing on Scribd, but has been removed) condemning the BBC for cowardice and a fear of any report “critical of the Israeli government.” The BBC has been criticized by its own employees since the war began with a similar letter of protest. While the western mainstream media has been notoriously biased in their coverage of the Gaza war, the BBC has been especially flagrant in twisting the news, according to the Center for Media Monitoring.
The latest outrage grew on July 1 over a documentary news story called “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.” Originally the BBC developed the idea for the documentary in 2024 and outsourced the production to a company called Basement Films with the intent to air the documentary on BBC in February. The documentary was expected to be aired during “prime time” and the BBC even put out a statement that, “We wanted the doctors’ voices to be heard.” Instead, however, the BBC scrapped its own story. Eventually, BBC’s competitor broadcaster, Channel 4, bought the rights, and the documentary is scheduled to be aired on July 2 by Channel 4.
Much of the journalists’ outrage against the BBC is directed against Sir Robert Paul Gibb, who worked in public relations and became Director of Communications for the Tory Prime Minister Theresa May. Gibb is currently on the BBC Board of Directors and was influential in spiking the Gaza story. Gibb claims to own 100% of the Jewish Chronicle Media firm, yet he complains that the Gaza documentary was not “impartial.” Another target has been Tim Davie who was a political candidate with the Conservative Party and VP of marketing at PepsiCo. Davie now serves as Director General of the BBC. There are clearly some rotten apples at the BBC, but its corporate role is to be the “soft power” behind the geopolitical stick.
