The BBC, Palestine, and 20 Years of Stories Nobody Else Would Touch

Mobeen Azhar on the BBC's coverage of Palestine, why identity politics gives him the 'ick', and 20 years of stories nobody else would touch.

Mobeen Azhar grew up in Huddersfield, the son of a bus driver whose appointment television was Newsnight and The Cook Report. He has spent 20 years at the BBC making documentaries nobody else would commission: Taliban drug raids in Karachi, British ISIS recruits, Johnny Kitagawa’s pop empire, heroin in his own hometown. The last one got him death threats and a BBC studio evacuation at 11pm.He has won a BAFTA, an RTS Award, and a Grierson. In this conversation he says things about the BBC he admits he would not have said 18 months ago: that it bends over backwards for the Daily Mail; that its Palestine coverage has propagated a distorted view of impartiality; and that for the whole of 2024, when a Palestinian appeared on screen, the first question was always the same. He also explains why he sees everything through class rather than identity, and what it means that a documentary he made in Japan changed the country’s laws.