BBC director general: I lost trust in the flawed BBC Gaza film
Tim Davie tells MPs he is aware of 'small payment' made to relative of a Hamas official during the making of the film Gaza:How To Survive A Warzone
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
BBC director general Tim Davie has admitted he is aware of a “small payment” being made to the sister of the son of the Hamas official who featured in a documentary on Gaza.
Appearing before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday alongside BBC chair Samir Shah, Davie said he is “not ruling anything out” when asked if the documentary on Gaza could return to iPlayer.
Shah told Committee: “To my shock, I think we found there were serious failings on the independent production side and on the BBC side.”
The BBC chair added: “We now need to decide what action we are going to take.”
The corporation removed the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone from the BBC’s on demand service after it emerged that the child narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
Davie told the Committee: “In terms of saying there was a specific question around the father of the boy, as we have dug into it, we have found out we were not told.”
He praised the “fantastic teams” working at the BBC, adding:”If you’re asked a question a number of times and that question was not answered …
“As editor in chief I have to be secure not only editorially where the film’s at, but the making of that film. At that point, quite frankly I lost trust in that film.”
The broadcaster apologised last week for “serious flaws” in the making of the programme after conducting an initial review and it has launched a further internal probe.
Davie told the Committee: “As editor-in-chief, I have to be secured, not only editorially where the film’s at, but the making of that film. And at that point, quite quickly, I lost trust in that film.
“Therefore I have taken the decision, took the decision quite quickly, to take it off iPlayer while we do this deep dive.”
Shah told the Committee: “To my shock, I think we found there were serious failings on the independent production side and on the BBC side.”
He added: “We acknowldge there are failings on both sides – we now need to decide what action we are going to take.
“What we’ve now done is ask for a further investigation.” Shah added: “I worry people really weren’t really doing their job.”
He added the idea that we saw what is happening in Gaza “thorough the eyes of children is a good documentary idea.”
Shah added: “What we are talking about is the execution of that idea.”
Questioned whether it could return to iPlayer, the BBC boss Davie said he is “not ruling anything out” but he wants “forensic analysis” to be carried out on the programme on various areas including its budget.
Following an initial review, a BBC spokesperson said last week that the broadcaster had “no plans to broadcast the programme again in its current form or return it to iPlayer” and that it would make a “further assessment” once the review is complete.
In a letter to the BBC on Monday, Ofcom chairman Lord Grade said the regulator could step in if an internal inquiry into the making of the documentary is not satisfactory.Ofcom chair Grade warns BBC over ‘flawed’ Gaza film ahead of MPs grilling
Lord Grade said Ofcom has “ongoing concerns about the nature and gravity of these failings and the negative impact they have on the trust audiences place in the BBC’s journalism”.
During the committee session on Tuesday, Davie said there is “a lot of frustration and disappointment” that the Gaza documentary has affected public trust in the corporation.
He said: “I’d say nothing’s more important than we’re trusted and we have actually built trust… so you can imagine that there’s a lot of frustration and disappointment.
“It’s not about the BBC and people like myself, but we’re very sorry to the audience, because we don’t want to be in a position where we have flaws in the programme-making.
“And overall, I am proud of the way we’re covering some of these polarised, fiendishly difficult events where many of our journalists, as you know, are under enormous pressure, ferocious lobbying, and it’s been extremely difficult.”
However, he acknowledged that there were “flaws” with the documentary and said the BBC has had around 500 complaints about the film being biased against Israel, and around 1,800 which wanted the film put back on iPlayer.
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