BBC Gaza documentary breached broadcasting code, Ofcom finds | UK News
A BBC Gaza documentary breached the broadcasting code, an Ofcom investigation has found.
The regulator said the failure to disclose that the 13-year-old boy narrating the programme was the son of a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run government broke the rules and that it was “materially misleading” not to mention it.
In July, the BBC said it breached its own editorial guidelines by failing to disclose the full identity of the child narrator’s father in the Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone documentary.
A report into the controversial programme said three members of the independent production company knew about the role of the boy’s father – but no one within the BBC was aware.
Ofcom’s investigation into the documentary, which followed 20 complaints, found that the audience was deprived of “critical information” which could have been “highly relevant” to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
The report said the failure to disclose the familial relationship “had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war”.
Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone aired on the BBC in February, but was pulled from iPlayer after it emerged that the child narrator was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
How To Survive A Warzone was made by independent production company Hoyo Films, and features 13-year-old Abdullah al Yazouri, who speaks about life in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas.
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Crises within the BBC
Following the BBC’s internal review into the programme, the corporation’s director general, Tim Davie, and Hoyo Films apologised.
Hoyo films said it was “working closely with the BBC” to see if it could find a way to bring back parts of the documentary to iPlayer, adding: “Our team in Gaza risked their lives to document the devastating impact of war on children.
“Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone remains a vital account, and our contributors – who have no say in the conflict – deserve to have their voices heard.”
Israel does not allow international news organisations into Gaza to report independently.
Describing it as “a serious breach of our rules,” Ofcom said they were directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of their findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date yet to be confirmed.
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