The culture secretary has said she will raise concerns with BBC bosses about a documentary on Gaza that was narrated by the son of a Hamas official. The broadcaster has been criticised for Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which centred on a 13-year-old boy who is the son of Hamas\u2019s deputy minister of agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lisa Nandy said she would discuss the matter with the BBC\u2019s director general and chairman, \u201cparticularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BBC said it had not been informed of the family connection in advance by the film\u2019s production company, and has apologised \u201cfor the omission of that detail\u201d. The BBC has added a message to the start of the programme on its iPlayer streaming service, making clear the family link, and saying the production team had \u201cfull editorial control\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A number of prominent TV figures including actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, Strike producer Neil Blair, former BBC One controller Danny Cohen and producer Leo Pearlman have written to the BBC to call for an investigation. They said: \u201cGiven the serious nature of these concerns, the BBC should immediately postpone any broadcast repeats of the programme, remove it from iPlayer and take down any social media clips of the programme until an independent investigation is carried out and its findings published with full transparency for licence-fee payers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf the BBC was aware that Abdullah Al-Yazouri was the son of a terrorist leader, why was this not disclosed to audiences during the programme?\u201d they asked. \u201cIf the BBC was not aware that Abdullah Al-Yazouri is the son of a terrorist leader, what diligence checks were undertaken and why did they fail?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It added: \u201cWe followed all of our usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe film remains a powerful child\u2019s eye view of the devastating consequences of the war in Gaza which we believe is an invaluable testament to their experiences, and we must meet our commitment to transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese things are difficult, and I do want to acknowledge that for the BBC, they take more care than most broadcasters in terms of the way that they try to portray these things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019ve been attacked for being too pro-Gaza, they\u2019ve been attacked for being anti-Gaza. But it is absolutely essential that we get this right.\u201d (BBC) The documentary, which aired on BBC Two on Monday, was made by Hoyo Films, which has not commented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The culture secretary has said she will raise concerns with BBC bosses about a documentary on Gaza that was narrated by the son of a Hamas official. The broadcaster has been criticised for Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which centred on a 13-year-old boy who is the son of Hamas\u2019s deputy minister of agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":471989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[688],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-infotainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Diligence checks:<\/strong>
They raised concerns about the \u201ceditorial standards of this programme and the BBC\u2019s compliance with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, its own Editorial Guidelines and English law\u201d, and asked the corporation to explain what had happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BBC has kept the programme on iPlayer, and the new message at the start reads: \u201cThe narrator of this film is 13 year old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza. \u201cThe production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Child\u2019s eye view:<\/strong>
In a statement, the BBC said: \u201cSince the transmission of our documentary on Gaza, the BBC has become aware of the family connections of the film\u2019s narrator, a child called Abdullah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information, we add some more detail to the film before its retransmission. We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nandy said the matter was \u201ca conversation I\u2019ll definitely be having with the BBC\u201d. Speaking to LBC on Thursday, she said: \u201cI watched it last night. It\u2019s something that I will be discussing with them, particularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n