A former senior Panorama producer has accused the BBC of showing bias in its coverage of the war in Gaza.
Phil Craig claimed that a “new, more radical generation” had come to dominate the broadcaster, and suggested some staff had been hired despite holding “partisan views”.
Mr Craig, who spent 20 years at the BBC before moving to Discovery Networks International and Australia’s ABC, said the corporation’s output appeared to be “insufficiently policed”.
Speaking at the Battle of Ideas festival last Saturday, the veteran television producer said: “I’m afraid as I saw what played out in Gaza, my career-long faith in the BBC just ebbed away. In its fairness and objectivity.”
During the Westminster discussion, Mr Craig said: “Of course, news makes mistakes. We all know news coverage can be faulted. There are wars, people spin them, both sides spin, and there’s propaganda.
“But all the mistakes in this particular war seem to be in the same direction. Mistakes of hiring people with incredibly partisan views or maybe even hiring people who were actually part of Hamas. The most outrageous of all, the October hospital moment.”
Mr Craig was referring to criticism of the BBC’s reporting of an explosion at Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital. At the time, a correspondent said the Israelis had been contacted and were investigating, but added: “It’s hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes”.
Western intelligence agencies later concluded that the blast was caused by a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from within Gaza.
Speaking at the Battle of Ideas festival last weekend, Phil Craig said the BBC’s output was “insufficiently policed”
The BBC was criticised over its reporting of the October 2023 explosion at Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital, after a correspondent speculated that an Israeli air strike was likely to blame
The BBC apologised and acknowledged that “even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way about the possible causes”.
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Mr Craig said: “It really worried me. I suspect the thing that caused all this is group-think. It’s a new generation, perhaps, a new, more radical generation, young people, activists, people insufficiently policed, insufficiently guided, old principles not being enforced in the way they have been on us.”
He joined the BBC’s trainee scheme in 1982 at the age of 23, later becoming a senior producer on Public Eye and Panorama. Mr Craig subsequently left the corporation to work for Brook Lapping, an independent production company he co-ran in London and which produced numerous programmes for the BBC.
Recalling his company’s work on the BBC documentary The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs in 1998, Mr Craig said the programme had been produced under “super high standards” of balance and fairness.
He later told The Telegraph that he watched the BBC’s coverage of the alleged hospital strike with “mounting alarm and dismay”. He said the reporting had helped fan unrest around the world, including “literal fires at synagogues”.
He added: “Anyone who has ever worked for the corporation’s news operation knows its global influence, and in this case it was deployed in entirely the wrong way.”
Mr Trump is suing the BBC over its editing of a speech he delivered in a 2024 Panorama documentary.
Last week, a US judge ordered the US President to answer questions under oath in his defamation lawsuit by December 11.
A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC is fully committed to reporting the Israel-Gaza war impartially, with no agenda and to the highest standards of journalism.
“We have delivered comprehensive coverage of the conflict, including breaking news, continuing updates on developments and in-depth analysis. BBC News has a duty to its audiences to present a range of perspectives on the conflict.”
‘When mistakes are made, we are transparent and accountable in acknowledging them and making corrections.’
