A BBC executive lambasted dozens of senior journalists for raising concerns that the BBC may be suppressing the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s ruling of a “plausible” genocide in Gaza, while himself undermining the importance of the ruling, according to emails seen by Novara Media.

BBC News global director Jonathan Munro’s defensive email, as well as allegations that he attempted to “intimidate” a junior colleague who put forward the group’s concerns, come as the BBC faces intensifying claims of pro-Israel bias.

In February last year, 25 BBC journalists – including senior correspondents, presenters and producers, many of them covering the conflict directly – wrote to management expressing their concern that the ICJ’s ruling in January was not being given “due prominence” in the BBC’s output.

The letter, first published by Al Jazeera in October, said the BBC’s inattention to the ICJ ruling could constitute “public disservice or, at worse, aiding and abetting genocide through story suppression”.

The letter noted that the ICJ ruling wasn’t reflected in broadcast interviews with government representatives, “whom we feel should be firmly challenged on their countries’ legal obligations under the genocide convention”. Nor was it being regularly included as context in reportage – even in cases where it was directly relevant, such as Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid (allowing aid into Gaza is one of the six provisional measures the ICJ issued to Israel).

One former BBC journalist who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions also noted the corporation’s choice not to live broadcast South Africa’s case at the ICJ, only Israel’s defence. At a Commons media committee hearing in March, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards David Jordan admitted to MPs that the broadcaster “made a mistake” in not live-broadcasting both events. A BBC spokesperson told Novara Media that the BBC had “reported on the ICJ case throughout BBC News coverage, where editorially relevant”.

Perhaps optimistically, the letter-writers expected management would be open to their feedback. In a follow-up to their letter, the staff reminded management that in October 2023 director-general Tim Davie had written to BBC staff, saying: “As ever, we want everyone to feel supported and safe at the BBC, and for you to feel able to speak up whenever you need to.” The BBC reiterated this in its statement to Novara Media, saying: “We want everyone to feel supported and safe at the BBC and we have well-established and robust processes in place to handle any concerns or complaints raised with us confidentially.”

Yet when colleagues did speak up, they were swiftly slapped down.

‘Retract it.’

In response to the letter, Jonathan Munro – the global director of BBC News, overseeing the World Service and oversees BBC Monitoring, and the deputy CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs – sent a belligerent email to staff, seen exclusively by Novara Media.

In the email he trashed the notion of “due prominence”, saying there was “no such thing … in the editorial guidelines”. Yet “due impartiality” is covered by the guidelines, which state: “In applying due impartiality to news, we give due weight to events, opinion and the main strands of argument.”

Munro added that the management “reject strongly the suggestion that the BBC is ‘aiding and abetting genocide’ through ‘story suppression’”. Yet in the same email, Munro goes on to downplay the ICJ ruling’s significance. “Whether or not Israel has committed genocide is still being assessed by the ICJ and could take years. To be precise the ICJ called on Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of telling it to halt the war,” he wrote.

Munro is correct that the ICJ did not demand Israel end the war entirely – though it did subsequently demand it stop its Rafah offensive, which Israel ignored – but rather issued six legally binding measures intended to prevent the commission of genocide. He is also correct that the final ICJ ruling on Gaza is not expected for not years – the ICJ took 14 years to adjudicate on the Bosnian genocide. However, the interim ruling was widely seen as a turning point in the war and indeed Israel’s history as the “only democracy in the Middle East”.

In several emails seen by Novara Media, Munro angrily demanded that the group “retract” its assertion that the BBC could be aiding and abetting genocide by suppressing the story of the ICJ ruling. “It’s a matter of genuine personal sadness to me that you have not directly responded to my point about reconsidering your assertion that the BBC was aiding and abetting genocide through story suppression,” he wrote.

“In my view, that allegation is flawed – not least because (a) it’s at the high end of egregious and (b) it’s evident that we have not suppressed this or any other story. I think the position you have jointly taken, and stuck to, is a real shame for all of us.”

Munro’s outrage confused the group, which felt he had misunderstood their letter. As they clarified in a later email: “The worry [was] that in a worst-case scenario, if the BBC was seen to omit relevant context and if the ICJ did rule that Israel’s military campaign amounted to genocide, it would face harsh judgement.” UK civil servants would express a similar fear to their management in April, requesting to stop work on Israeli arms sales for fear that they could later be found complicit in war crimes.

What’s more, “Munro asked us to retract a statement that wasn’t public,” noted one former BBC journalist. “Who are we retracting it from? What are you asking us to do?”

“I think it was possibly an act of foolishness: the mask slipped. I think it was a response of, ‘The gall of this lot, questioning us in this way,’” the former staffer added in a message.

Their confusion deepened when it transpired that Munro was quite comfortable with the letter being made public – because he’d publicised it himself. A few days later, in an appearance before the Lords communications and digital committee, Munro quoted directly from the letter to suggest that he and other BBC executives were being subjected to internal pro-Palestine “lobbying”.

“I’ve had a range of complaints from, ‘You are aiding and abetting genocide’ to, ‘It’s an outrage you are not showing more about destruction in Gaza,’ while others are saying we are in the hands of the Israeli government.

“None of the above is true – some are genuinely held and others are lobbying and it’s difficult sometimes to pull one motive aside from the others.”

The interview, suggested one former BBC journalist, was an attempt to “get ahead of the story in case one of us went rogue and leaked it”.

Another former BBC journalist suggested that such tactics were of a piece with Munro’s repressive approach to dissent. They noted that Munro addressed his email solely to the letter’s writer and original sender – a relatively junior young woman colleague – removing the 24 other journalists from CC. “His response was designed to intimidate and to shut the conversation down,” they told Novara Media, adding in a subsequent message: “He thought he could single out and intimidate the fairly junior ‘ringleader’ and collapse the entire effort.” After the sender reinserted her co-signatories into the email chain, Munro addressed his subsequent emails to “Dear colleagues”.

Munro joined the BBC in 2014 as the corporation’s head of newsgathering, briefly serving as interim director of news and current affairs from 2022 to 2024, when he was appointed BBC News global director. The BBC website indicates that his salary range is £285,000 – £289,999. “Jonathan is … a company man, entirely,” remarked one former BBC journalist to Novara Media.

The exchange between Munro and staff is the latest episode in a months-long internal battle at the BBC over its output on Gaza, one that is increasingly waged in public.

Whistleblowers.

Just 10 days into Israel’s assault on Gaza in October 2023, the BBC’s North Africa correspondent Bassem Bounneni resigned “for the sake of my professional conscience”. Others would stay and influence the corporation’s coverage from within – though they soon became frustrated.

In January 2024, several BBC staff went public about their “listening meetings” with Davie, in which roughly two dozen staff had alleged that the BBC displayed pro-Israel bias. “It actually took them months in the beginning … to humanise Palestinians … they were just rattling off strings of numbers,” one former BBC journalist told Novara Media.

In January 2024 the Telegraph reported that at least 22 Jewish employees had filed a range of complaints about the corporation, including allegedly antisemitic conduct. Some took umbrage at Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker’s social media posts, including his retweeting a post that said Israel should be banned from sporting events.

According to a report in Deadline, Davie acknowledged to colleagues that pro-Israeli groups were more organised than their pro-Palestinian counterparts in their dealings with the BBC.

“BBC editors live in fear of being reprimanded by their superiors, alerted to some perceived injustice or other by the ever-vigilant Israeli embassy,” an anonymous BBC journalist wrote in the US socialist magazine Jacobin in May last year.

In recent months, however, BBC journalists have become bolder in their public criticism of the broadcaster’s perceived pro-Israel bias. In November 2024, over 100 BBC journalists were among the 237 UK media professionals – including the author of this report and several other Novara Media staff – who signed a letter claiming that major broadcasters were abandoning “basic journalistic tenets … when it comes to holding Israel account for its actions”.

“Many of us have raised concerns across organisations via the appropriate channels, to no avail,” the letter said.

Another 13 current and former BBC journalists spoke to Owen Jones for his in-depth investigation into the corporation’s “civil war over Gaza”, published with Drop Site News in December. Jones’ sources claimed that BBC News online Middle East editor Raffi Berg – a former pro-Israel demonstrator who describes himself as the “very close friend” of an ex-Mossad commander – “sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine”. Some claimed that he personally screens all of it.

The upcoming Palestine demonstration in London on Saturday 18 January is planned to start at the BBC Broadcasting House in central London, in protest at what organisers have described as the broadcaster’s “pro-Israel bias”. It will be the third time that the national march, which has taken place in the capital almost fortnightly since October 2023, has started at Broadcasting House.

The G-word.

Speaking to Novara Media, one former BBC journalist said that the reason the ICJ ruling caused such a stir internally was that “up until that moment, the BBC could argue that there’s no legal basis for thinking that this is a genocide despite all the statements of intent but an ICJ ruling should present a turning point.” It did not.

In Al Jazeera’s recent documentary on Western media’s coverage of Gaza, a former BBC employee using the pseudonym Sara said: “People were terrified of using the word ‘genocide’ in coverage. They still are. You will very rarely see it in any BBC coverage. And if an interviewee says the word ‘genocide’ … the presenter will almost always panic.”

Speaking to Novara Media, a former BBC employee says that this reluctance to use the term has persisted even after both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued landmark reports firmly concluding that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide as defined by the UN’s 1948 genocide convention.

“Until there is a firm ruling that it’s a genocide, there are lots of people who will not call it one,” they said. “But while it’s unfolding, it’s very critical to identify what it is.”

“The evidence is quite clear. And instead of tackling that responsibly, the BBC has just suppressed it.”

In a statement to Novara Media, a BBC spokesperson said: “We do not comment on internal correspondence. As we have said previously, this conflict is one of the most polarising stories to report on, and we know people feel very strongly about how this is being reported.

“The BBC holds itself to very high standards, and we strive to live up our responsibility to deliver the most trusted and impartial news – reporting without fear or favour.”