BBC chair Samir Shah admitted the network having to pull its Gaza documentary was “a really, really bad moment” and “a dagger to the heart” of BBC, according to multiple media reports. Shah spoke about the project to the U.K.’s Members of Parliament during a pre-planned meeting on Tuesday.
Last month, the BBC removed the documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone” after it was revealed that the project’s 13-year-old narrator was the child of a deputy agriculture minister for Hamas. The documentary is no longer available on BBC’s iPlayer, and an internal investigation has been launched.
“This is a really, really bad moment,” Shah said alongside the BBC’s director general Tim Davie during the Parliamentary session. “What has been revealed is a dagger to the heart of the BBC’s claim to be impartial and to be trustworthy, which is why I and the board are determined to ask the questions.”
Shah went on to say that the editorial standards and guidelines for the BBC are “very good” and “very strong.” “I have a worry that it wasn’t so much the processes were at fault, as people weren’t doing their job. That’s what we need to really establish,” he said.
Davie also said there had been a “serious failing” in the documentary and turned the blame to Hoyo Films, the independent production company that made the documentary, stating that heads at BBC “were not told” by the company about the teenage narrator’s possible ties to Hamas. The meeting also revealed that Hoyo had already paid the boy’s mother what has been described as a limited sum for his involvement. That payment will be part of the investigation.
Davie then stood by the BBC’s decision to pull the documentary, a move that has also been criticized. The network head said he “lost trust” in the team that made the film, which led to his “difficult” decision.
“‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’ features important stories we think should be told — those of the experiences of children in Gaza. There have been continuing questions raised about the programme and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company,” the British public service broadcaster said in February statement. “The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”
“Since the transmission of this documentary, the BBC has become aware that the father of the film’s narrator, a child called Abdullah, has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza,” a separate statement further clarified after it aired on BBC Two.
“We’ve promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information, we add some more detail to the film before its retransmission. We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film,” an additional BBC statement read. “We followed all of our usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film.”
That message concluded, “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.”
