Tim Davie has not ruled out reairing the controversial documentary about Gaza which was pulled from iPlayer after it emerged it featured the son of a Hamas official.
Addressing the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee on Tuesday, the BBC director general said the broadcaster would conduct a “forensic investigation” into the programme, admitting that “transparency was lacking” in the making of the film.
Mr Davie’s appearance in front of the committee follows the BBC’s apology last week for “serious flaws” in the making of the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone after it emerged that the child narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
The BBC previously said it had “no plans to broadcast the programme again in its current form or return it to iPlayer” and that it would make a “further assessment” once the review is complete.
On Tuesday, Mr Davie told MPs on the committee that he is “not ruling anything out”.
“As editor-in-chief, I have to be secure, not only editorially where the film’s at, but the making of that film. And at that point, quite quickly, I lost trust in that film.
“Therefore, I have taken the decision, took the decision quite quickly, to take it off iPlayer while we do this deep dive,” he said.
Questioned whether it could return to iPlayer, the BBC boss said he is “not ruling anything out” but he wants “forensic analysis” to be carried out on the programme in various areas including its budget.
Mr Davie added that he is aware of a “small payment” being made to the sister of the son of the Hamas official who featured in the documentary for his part in recording the narration.
Asked why they pulled the documentary from the streaming service in the first place, Mr Davie said it was because, as editor-in-chief, he couldn’t trust the programme.
“It isn’t to do with one side or the other. We try and navigate a course sensibly, rationally, based on balanced and fair journalism.
“What we did, and 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 how we made the decision. It’s a simple decision in that regard,” he said.
He admitted that there is “a lot of frustration and disappointment” that the BBC Gaza documentary affected public trust in the corporation, apologising to the audience.
“Firstly, I’d say nothing’s more important than we’re trusted and we have actually built trust… so you can imagine that there’s a lot of frustration and disappointment. It’s not about the BBC and people like myself, but we’re very sorry to the audience, because we don’t want to be in a position where we have flaws in the programme-making.
“And overall, I am proud of the way we’re covering some of these polarised, fiendishly difficult events where many of our journalists, as you know, are under enormous pressure, ferocious lobbying, and it’s been extremely difficult. But in this case, there are flaws.”
Mr Davie also revealed that the BBC has had around 500 complaints about the film being biased against Israel, and around 1,800 who wanted the film put back on iPlayer.
The broadcaster’s chair Samir Shah said there were “serious failings” by both the independent production company and the BBC.
“It’s not so much that the processes were at fault, as people weren’t doing their job,” he admitted.
In a letter to the BBC on Monday, Ofcom chair Michael Grade said the regulator could step in if an internal inquiry into the making of the documentary is not satisfactory.
Lord Grade said Ofcom has “ongoing concerns about the nature and gravity of these failings and the negative impact they have on the trust audiences place in the BBC’s journalism”.
