Ex-BBC boss says most staff seek to be impartial amid Gaza documentary row

Almost everyone working at the BBC does their best to be fair, accurate and impartial, a former boss of the broadcaster has said, amid controversy over a documentary on Gaza which featured the son of a Hamas official.

While people make mistakes, as in any large institution, Lord Birt argued the corporation was “the single most respected news organisation in the whole world from Scunthorpe to the Sudan”.

The independent crossbencher made his comments at Westminster after the BBC removed the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone from its on demand service when it emerged that the child narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.

The broadcaster apologised last week for “serious flaws” in the making of the programme after conducting an initial review and it has launched a further internal probe.

In a letter to the BBC on Monday, Ofcom chairman Lord Grade said the regulator could step in if an internal inquiry into the making of the documentary is not satisfactory.

Lord Grade, a non-affiliated peer, said Ofcom has “ongoing concerns about the nature and gravity of these failings and the negative impact they have on the trust audiences place in the BBC’s journalism”.

Speaking in Parliament, Lord Birt, who was director-general of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, said: “Like in any major organisation, people working for the BBC make mistakes and mistakes must be exposed when they happen and the lessons learnt.

“But would the minister agree that the reason why the BBC is the single most respected news organisation in the whole world from Scunthorpe to the Sudan is that almost everyone who works for the BBC is wholly committed and is doing their best to be fair, accurate and impartial?”

Responding, media minister Baroness Twycross said: “It is a really important point he makes that when we get these incidents it can be hugely demoralising for people who are working really hard to get that accurate, impartial information.”

She added: “We do have to make sure that we understand exactly what went wrong and the BBC is undertaking a thorough investigation into that and Ofcom and the Secretary of State are very cognisant of the issues and also wanting answers.”

Earlier, she told peers: “It’s right that the BBC is conducting a thorough investigation into what happened and who knew what when.

“I won’t prejudge the outcome of the BBC’s investigation.”

While former lord speaker Lord Fowler shared the criticism of the programme at the centre of the row, he added: “But I think we should recognise that that does not in any way describe the BBC’s general coverage of Gaza.”

Speaking as a former journalist who had covered the Middle East conflict, the independent crossbencher told peers: “What struck me was the way that BBC journalists strived for impartiality in all their reporting and as far as I can see that is the same today.”

Lady Twycross said: “We do expect to have that high standard of journalism, which is why the BBC has traditionally been a trusted source of news both in this country and overseas and that is one of the reasons why this incident is so serious.”