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 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.
The documentary was made by independent production company Hoyo Films, and features 13-year-old Abdullah Alyazouri, who speaks about life in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas.
It was pulled from BBC iPlayer in February after it emerged that the boy was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
A BBC review 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 a narrator’s links to Hamas “had the potential to erode the very high levels of trust that audiences would have expected in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war”.
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Crises within the BBC
Following its internal review into the programme, and a full fact-finding review the BBC’s director of Editorial Complaints and Reviews, Peter Johnston, 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.
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Describing it as “a serious breach” of its rules,” Ofcom said they were directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of their findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date yet to be confirmed.
Responding to the findings of Ofcom’s investigation, a BBC spokesperson said: “The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston’s review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code.
“We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom’s decision in full.
“We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised.”
