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BAFTA sparks BBC row
The documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack won the current affairs category at the BAFTA TV Awards on Sunday evening, nearly a year after the BBC refused to air the film and later picked it up for broadcast by Channel 4 in July.
“Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, which was dropped by the BBC, have won the Bafta TV Awards”
Executive producer Ben de Pear used the acceptance speech to challenge the BBC directly, asking, “Finally, just a question for the BBC: Given you dropped our film will you drop us from the BAFTA TV screening later on tonight?”
Journalist and presenter Ramita Navai said the film highlighted findings from an investigation into attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system, telling the ceremony, “These are the findings of our investigation that the BBC paid for but refused to show.”
Navai also said more than 1,700 Palestinian doctors and healthcare workers had been killed and more than 400 detained during Israel’s war on Gaza, and she dedicated the award to Palestinian medical workers held in Israeli prisons.
The BBC had commissioned the documentary from independent production company Basement Films more than a year earlier, but delayed its release while reviewing another Gaza-related documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, before deciding it would not air Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.
Edited speech and backlash
British media reports described how the BBC edited portions of Navai’s remarks from its televised broadcast after consultations with its compliance team, with the edited version removing her remarks about Israel while keeping criticism of the broadcaster and praise for Channel 4.
The National Scot said the BBC’s edit condensed the awards coverage on BBC One, which screened from 7pm with a delay of around two hours after the ceremony began, and it described the speech as “condensed in the BBC’s edit when the Bafta Television Awards aired later that night.”
In the full speech that was cut down, Navai reportedly said, “These are the findings of our investigation that the BBC paid for but refused to show.”
HuffPost UK reported that the BBC aired coverage of the TV Baftas on a two-hour time delay and that it “omitt[ed] the statistics she provided on stage,” while including her criticism of the BBC and praise for Channel 4.
HuffPost UK also quoted a BBC spokesperson explaining that “The live event is three hours and it has to be reduced to two hours for its on-air slot,” and said “all edits were made to ensure the programme was delivered to time.”
What’s at stake next
The dispute over Gaza: Doctors Under Attack has continued to frame the BBC’s editorial decisions around impartiality, with the broadcaster previously saying the film risked creating “a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC.”
“a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC”
Al Jazeera reported that the BBC said impartiality remained “a core principle of BBC News,” and it described how the BBC’s decision to shelve the documentary was later followed by Channel 4 acquiring and broadcasting the film in July.
Middle East Eye reported that Deborah Turness, then head of news and current affairs, pointed to alleged social media activity by one of the journalists involved and criticised Navai’s language in a radio interview as “not compatible with the BBC’s standards of impartiality.”
At the BAFTAs, de Pear sharpened the confrontation by asking, “Given you dropped the film, will you drop us from the BAFTA screening?” while Navai said the BBC “paid for” the documentary but “refused to show it.”
Al Jazeera also said the documentary’s acceptance speech renewed controversy over the broadcaster’s decision to shelve the project, and it added that de Pear praised Gazan journalists Jaber Badwan and Osana Al Ashi backstage for contributing footage and for being “still alive.”
