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Journalism of Courage
A BBC documentary showcasing the lives of children in war-torn Gaza recently came under fire after a report found that it had breached editorial guidelines on accuracy as it failed to disclose that the narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
The documentary “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone”, was removed by the broadcaster from its streaming service in February, following revelations that its 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, a Hamas official who served as the deputy minister of agriculture.
A review found that the independent production company, Hoyo Films, responsible for creating the documentary, did not share the “critical information” of the narrator’s family background with the BBC before broadcast.
The probe concluded that Hoyo Films bore the majority of the responsibility for this oversight, although it was deemed unintentional.
Following the controversy, Britain’s media regulator Ofcom said that it would launch an investigation into the matter and probe the documentary under a specific rule that mandates factual programmes to avoid “materially misleading the audience”.
“Regardless of how the significance or otherwise of the Narrator’s father’s position was judged, the audience should have been informed about this,” said the report by Peter Johnston, BBC Director of Editorial Complaints and Reviews.
BBC Director-General Tim Davie said that the report had identified a crucial failing concerning accuracy.
“We will now take action on two fronts – fair, clear and appropriate actions to ensure proper accountability and the immediate implementation of steps to prevent such errors being repeated,” Davie said in a statement.
Will ‘improve processes and prevent similar problems’, says Hoyo Films
After courting controversy over the documentary, the production company Hoyo Films released a statement apologising for the breach and affirmed its commitment to “improve processes and prevent similar problems”.
“We take the findings in Peter Johnston’s report on Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone extremely seriously and apologise for the mistake that resulted in a breach of the (BBC) editorial guidelines,” the statement read.
“We are pleased that the report found that there was no evidence of inappropriate influence on the content of the documentary from any third party. We appreciate the rigorous nature of this investigation, and its findings that Hoyo Films did not intentionally mislead the BBC, that there were no other breaches of the editorial guidelines in the programme, and that there was no evidence to suggest that the programme funds were spent other than for reasonable, production-related purposes,” it said.
“Hoyo Films welcomes the report’s recommendations and hope they will improve processes and prevent similar problems in the future. We are working closely with the BBC to see if we can find an appropriate way to bring back to iPlayer the stories of those featured in the programme,” the statement added.
‘We didn’t run those questions to ground, ‘ says BBC News chief
Chief executive of BBC News and Current Affairs Deborah Turness, in an interview with BBC Radio 4, said the broadcaster has taken the matter “incredibly seriously” and it will share the action plan that has been put in place in order to ensure that this kind of “mistake” does not happen again.
“We’ve said we’re sorry, and I am sorry,” Turness said.
“At BBC News, we are fully accountable,” she said. “And we didn’t run those questions to ground.”
“Yes, they should have known because their questions should have been answered at the many times of asking” by the production company, she added.
The BBC’s coverage of the war has faced intense scrutiny, with critics on both sides – pro-Israel and anti-Israel – accusing the broadcaster of failing to strike the right balance.
(With inputs from BBC, Reuters and AP)
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