Ex-Panorama producer accuses BBC of pro-Palestine bias
Film-maker says his faith in broadcaster ‘ebbed away’ as he watched coverage of the Gaza conflict
Samuel Montgomery 24 October 2026
A former senior producer on Panorama has accused the BBC of bias in its coverage of the conflict in Gaza.
Phil Craig, who spent two decades working for the corporation, claimed a “new, more radical generation” had taken over the broadcaster.
The veteran producer, who was later chief creative officer of Discovery Networks International and head of factual for the Australian broadcaster ABC, warned that output from the BBC was being “insufficiently policed”.
Speaking at the Battle of Ideas festival last Saturday, he 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.”
Mr Craig, who was recruited by the BBC from Cambridge University, where he read history, added: “Of course, news makes mistakes. We all know news coverage, it 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 the criticism the BBC faced for its coverage of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, when a correspondent speculated on air that an Israeli air strike was probably to blame. Western intelligence agencies later concluded that a misfired Hamas rocket was to blame.
He 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.”
Recalling his production company’s work on a documentary for the broadcaster in 1998, titled The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs, Mr Craig said they had been held to “super high standards” of balance and fairness.
He later told The Telegraph he had watched the BBC’s coverage of the alleged hospital strike with “mounting alarm and dismay, and noted how it helped fan fires all 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 Craig joined the BBC’s trainee scheme in 1982, aged 23, rising to become a senior producer on Public Eye and Panorama before leaving to work for Brook Lapping, a London production company that made programmes for the BBC as an independent contractor.
As an independent producer co-running Brook Lapping, he made numerous series for the BBC, including the 2000 Finest Hour series, the 2005 BBC and Africa series, and the Live Aid at 40 and Live 8 documentary series.
In December, The Telegraph revealed that Panorama had edited a speech Donald Trump made on Jan 6, 2021, to make it seem as though he had incited the Capitol Hill riots. The US president has since launched defamation proceedings against the BBC.
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 with breaking news, ongoing updates on developments and in-depth analysis. BBC News has a duty to our audiences to provide a range of perspectives on the conflict.
“When mistakes are made, we are transparent and accountable in acknowledging them and making corrections.”