How to Survive a Warzone’ Breached BBC Guidelines

The BBC documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone breached one of the broadcaster’s editorial guidelines by failing to disclose a child’s connection to Hamas, a report published on Monday has found.

The corporation came under fire in February when one of the 13-year-old subjects in the film, a young boy called Abdullah Al-Yazouri, was found to be the son of Hamas’ deputy minister of agriculture.

The BBC pulled the doc from its streaming service, BBC iPlayer, and apologized for the “unacceptable flaws” in airing the program. It said at the time that production company Hoyo Films “assured [the BBC] that no payments were made to members of Hamas or its affiliates, either directly, in kind, or as a gift”.

A review by Peter Johnston — independent of BBC News and current affairs — was ordered and made available on Monday. The review team identified and considered 5000 documents from a 10-month production period, as well as 150 hours of material filmed during production.

Johnson concluded that the program breached a guideline on accuracy, which deals with misleading audiences. His report describes the background on Al-Yazouri’s father as “critical information” not shared with the BBC before broadcast. “Regardless of how the significance or otherwise of the narrator’s father’s position was judged, the audience should have been informed about this,” it says.

While the review does not consider that Hoyo Films intentionally misled the BBC about the narrator’s father’s position, it finds the independent production company bears “most responsibility for this failure”. The BBC is also partially to blame, it adds.

The corporation takes “this finding very seriously,” according to a press release. BBC director-general Tim Davie said the report identifies “a significant failing in relation to accuracy.”

“We will now take action on two fronts,” he continued, “fair, clear and appropriate actions to ensure proper accountability and the immediate implementation of steps to prevent such errors being repeated.”

A statement from the BBC board added: “Nothing is more important than trust and transparency in our journalism. We welcome the actions the executive are taking to avoid this failing being repeated in the future.”

Hoyo Films apologized for the mistake and added that they are working with the BBC to see if there’s a way to bring back to iPlayer the stories of those featured in the program. It comes after outrage from industry figures who were, in February, calling on the BBC to reinstate the program. Soccer star Gary Lineker, actors Riz Ahmed, Khalid Abdalla, Miriam Margolyes and director Mike Leigh were among the 800+ signatories of an open letter published by Artists for Palestine U.K.

“Our team in Gaza risked their lives to document the devastating impact of war on children,” said the production company. “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.”

The report found no other breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, including any breaches of impartiality, and no evidence that outside interests “inappropriately impacted on the programme”.

“Careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project given the highly contested nature of the subject matter,” it concluded.