BBC Watch

The BBC has pulled a documentary which follows the life of a boy in war-torn Gaza after seemingly coming under pressure from Israeli supporters.

Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone which was on the BBC's iPlayer streaming service centres on the struggles of 13-year-old Abdullah, living under Israel's brutal offensive in the Palestinian territory.

Following pressure, it was taken down on Friday, a day after British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she would discuss the issue with the BBC's director general and chairman. The BBC says that a number of British television figures also had sent letters criticising it and called for an investigation.

The documentary was removed after the BBC with the explanation  that the organisation discovered that the boy's father, Dr Ayman Alyazouri, has worked as a deputy agriculture minister in the Gaza government. Following the ban, the BBC issued a statement saying:

The film remains a powerful child's eye view of the devastating consequences of the war in Gaza which we believe is an invaluable testament to their experiences, and we must meet our commitment to transparency.

Despite it being pulled from iPlayer, many online users have shared the one-hour documentary on social media.

Journalist Ella Whelan is arguing that censoring the classic Christmas song, Fairytale in New York is a form of cultural vandalism.

The Spiked Online contributor was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast after BBC Radio 2 became the latest station to censor the song.

She said her biggest problem with the decision is the suggestion it was taken at the behest of a young generation that's 'more sensitive' than those of us horrible old people to questions of gender and sexuality.

Censoring Fairytale of New York has become as much of a Christmas tradition as hanging up stockings and putting the tree up, she said. It's getting ridiculous now.

The BBC is shaking up its complaints process after TV censor Ofcom told it to be more open with its feedback.

The broadcaster will make its online complaints page easier to find and use. It also aims to improve how editorial teams respond to complaints. BBC director-general Tim Davie claimed:

Trust is a core value of the BBC. If audiences want to raise a complaint they must be dealt with swiftly, fairly and consistently. The process must be easy to understand.

It will be interesting to see if the BBC continues its policy of never actually publishing what is being complained about. The BBC merely acknowledges that complaints have been received about a programme, and then often provides a wishy washy response with out addressing details of the complaint.

Trevor Phillips has attacked the BBC for censoring the word 'nigger' in Bob Dylan's anti-racism protest song Hurricane .

The former race equality chief said it was incredibly patronising of the BBC to let black artists on urban radio station 1Xtra use the word, but then censor other musicians. He described the decision of Radio 6 Music bosses to edit out a line of the Dylan song featuring the word as absurd and insulting.

Bob Dylan's anti-racism protest song Hurricane is about the boxer Rubin Carter, who was wrongly convicted of murder. It had the line:

And for the black folks he was just a crazy nigger

removed when it was broadcast on Tom Robinson's 6 Music show, Now Playing, on April 24. T

A listener pointed out that the song itself was an impassioned anti-racist account of a notorious miscarriage of justice and that the line you fellows deleted is very much a key moment in the story. Phillips appeared on a Radio 4 show to discuss the issue and was scathing about the way the BBC had behaved. He told the programme:

Bob Dylan has used that word for a particular reason in one of his most powerful pieces of work --which by the way is a profoundly anti-racist piece of work and for somebody, who frankly shouldn't be there to judge a genius, to tell me I'm too fragile to listen to what Bob Dylan has done with his work of art -- I think this is both absurd and insulting and actually not what the BBC is there to do.