Labour peer Lord Katz has joined calls for a “proper independent review” of the BBC’s Middle East coverage and questions of impartiality following the exposure of serious flaws in a Gaza documentary.
Speaking in the Lords, the Jewish Labour Movement chair said he was speaking out as “long-term supporter” of the BBC and of its news output but who now agreed with BBC chair Dr Samir Shah, who told a select committee hearing on Tuesday that the controversy over the Gaza film was a “dagger to the heart of BBC impartiality.”
“This isn’t the BBC’s first misstep in this area as far as the Jewish community perceives it,” added Lord Katz.
The peer then added a “proper independent review of the corporation’s Middle East coverage, not just this documentary, but its wider coverage is essential to maintain our confidence, and importantly the confidence of the Jewish community in this country.”
Appearing before a Commons committee on Tuesday, Shah, and director general Tim Davie said the BBC was now conducting its own inquiry in the flaws around the Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone film, including the clear links and claims of payments made to relatives of Hamas officials.
The corporation removed the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone from the BBC’s on demand service after it emerged that the child narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
How To Survive A Warzone star Abdullah
Appearing on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme Caroline Dinenage, who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said the BBC’s decision to mount its own review into the making and due diligence around the making of the film had left many unanswered questions.
But she did not call for an independent review at this stage, but said that as the BBC continued to carry out its review there was a need to be 100 percent transparent.
Peter Johnson, BBC director of editorial complaints, is carrying out the probe into the film.
At yesterday’s committe hearing, Shah repeated his earlier suggestion that the current scandal could prompt a “thematic review” of the corporation’s approach to the Middle East, and a “a proper, independent review of our coverage.”
