Failings in the making of a documentary on Gaza are a “dagger to the heart” of the BBC’s claims of trustworthiness and impartiality, the corporation’s chair has said, as he indicated that figures inside the corporation had fallen short in their handling of the film.
Samir Shah said he believed “people weren’t doing their job” in relation to the oversight of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. The programme was pulled from iPlayer and an internal investigation launched after it emerged that the 13-year-old who narrated the film, Abdullah al-Yazouri, was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas government.
Speaking before MPs alongside the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, Shah described his shock at the failings that have already emerged, which he said were made both by the independent production company and figures involved in the project at the BBC.
“This is a really, really bad moment,” he said. “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.
“The processes, the editorial guidelines and the standards the BBC has are very good. They’re 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.”
Davie acknowledged there had been a “serious failing” in the documentary, but said that the BBC remained highly trusted overall. He also piled pressure on Hoyo Films, the independent production company that made the documentary, by saying BBC figures “were not told” about the boy’s possible family links to Hamas.
The BBC has already said it has been told by Hoyo that it paid the boy’s mother via his sister’s bank account. It described it as a limited sum. The payment is being examined part of a “deep dive” investigation now taking place into the programme.
There is anger within the BBC over the failure and an expectation that there will have to be consequences. There is pressure on Joanna Carr, the head of current affairs, who had editorial responsibility for the programme and is said to have watched it before it was broadcast on 17 February. However, there are also questions being asked of the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, an even more senior figure in the corporation.
Davie was also confronted about a letter signed by figures including Gary Lineker, Ruth Negga, Juliet Stevenson and Miriam Margolyes – and now said to have about 1,000 signatories overall – calling for the BBC to reinstate the documentary, describing it as an “essential piece of journalism”.
Davie said that after failures in transparency had been revealed, he simply “lost trust” in the production of the film and personally ordered it to be pulled from the BBC’s services.
“It was a very difficult decision,” he said. “What I did – and it was a very tough decision – was to say, at the moment, looking people in the eye, can we trust this film in terms of how it was made, the information we’ve got? And that’s where we made the decision. It’s a simple decision in that regard.”
The BBC investigation is being fast-tracked and carried out by its primary troubleshooter, the director of editorial complaints and reviews, Peter Johnston. He is tasked with looking at whether editorial guidelines were broken in the production process and ultimately whether anyone should be disciplined. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
Hoyo Films has said it is “cooperating fully with the BBC and Peter Johnston to help understand where mistakes have been made. We feel this remains an important story to tell, and that our contributors – who have no say in the war – should have their voices heard.”
Shah also revealed that the disgraced newsreader Huw Edwards had not handed back more than £200,000 in salary which he earned after being arrested for accessing indecent images of children. He was given a six-month suspended prison sentence in September. “It’s not right,” said Shah. “He’s taking licence fee-payers money. And he knew what he’d done and he should return it now.”
The two BBC figures also used their appearance before the culture select committee to float a series of major changes to the corporation and its funding. Shah raised the prospect of it supporting the decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee in return for the government taking on the costs of the BBC World Service and free TV licences for some over-75s.
Both men said that making the licence fee more progressive, which could mean the wealthy would pay more, was another option that should be explored.
