Why Michael Prescott’s BBC memo was misguided on Israel-Palestine
Protesters gather outside the BBC Scotland during a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Glasgow on 14 October 2023
Peter Oborne writes in Middle East Eye on 21 November 2025:
Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee, recently stood down and sent an internal memo setting out his concerns about the corporation’s reporting. After the Prescott memo was leaked this month, its revelations prompted the resignations of two senior BBC executives. US President Donald Trump called them “very dishonest people” and threatened a massive lawsuit.
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Dear Michael,
We are preparing an article on your memo to the BBC board members. We have worked on an analysis of your claims, in particular those concerning the BBC’s coverage of Gaza.
We plan to say that there are several problems with your memo. And we want to put them to you first, so that you have time to respond.
You set out a number of areas where you claim that BBC English coverage has fallen down from the highest standards when it comes to its reporting of Israel. However, as a former independent adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee, why did you not also draw attention to many coherent criticisms that the BBC has been biased against Palestinians?
For example, in November 2024, the BBC presented footage of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters attacking Dutch people as if it showed attacks by Dutch racists against Jews. The BBC belatedly acknowledged that its use of the footage “could have given” a misleading impression. Why didn’t you highlight this example of reporting, which presented pro-Palestinians as aggressors and Israeli football thugs as victims? It was, after all, at least as egregious as the Panorama/Trump editing debacle.
Why didn’t you express concern about the presence of Robbie Gibb, for several years the sole owner of the Jewish Chronicle, on the editorial guidelines and standards committee of the BBC? This point is especially relevant, given there was no remotely comparable pro-Palestinian figure on the committee.
You did not express concern that Avi Shlaim – a Jewish Israeli historian, emeritus fellow of St Antony’s College, emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, and world authority on the Israel-Palestine conflict – has never been invited to speak on a mainstream BBC programme.
The same applies to Ilan Pappe, a Jewish-Israeli historian and professor at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. Similarly, genocide scholar Martin Shaw says that he is invited to comment by news organisations around the globe – but not the BBC.
In your survey, why do you not give consideration to these examples of misreporting by omission? Do you agree with us that the only plausible reason they have been excluded is because they are critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians?