The controversy around the Gaza documentary of the BBC is a 'dagger for the heart' of the company's claim to be 'impartial' and 'reliable', the chairman of the company has admitted.
Samir Shah said that the line blew up after it appeared that the program was told by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas officer, was a 'really bad moment' for the BBC.
Both Mr Shah and director General Tim Davie appeared for MPs yesterday because they were grilled about the crisis.
Despite the row, Mr. Davie said that he 'did not eliminate anything' in terms of the program that returned to IPLayer, if adaptations have been made to the documentary.
During the session he also said that the BBC was 'sorry' to the public because the company did not want to be in a position 'where we have mistakes in programming'.
There have been days of recoil about the Gaza program: how to survive a war zone, after the links arose between that in the program and members of the terrorist organization.
The documentary was deleted from BBC IPLayer after the narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who worked as a vice minister of agriculture of Hamas.
There were days of recoil about the Gaza program: how to survive a war zone, after it appeared, the narrator was the son of Hamas Official Ayman Alyazouri
BBC chairman Samir Shah has admitted that the controversy around the Gaza documentary of the BBC is a 'dagger to the heart' of the company's assertion to be 'impartial' and 'reliable'
BBC Broadcasting House in London
BBC chairman Dr. Shah told the culture, media and sports committee: 'Let me agree with you first that this is a real, really bad time. What has been revealed, goes to the heart, is a dagger in the heart of the BBC statement to be impartial and to be reliable, and therefore I and the board are determined to answer the questions you have just asked. '
Mr. Davie said that after recent revelations about the documentary “had lost confidence in that film” and that is why he made the decision to remove it while performing a 'deep dive'.
He said that 'forensic analysis' would now be performed on the program, including the budget.
The director general said that the BBC had received around 500 complaints about the film that was biased against Israel, while 1,800 had called on the program to put back on IPLayer.
