Who didn’t see this coming? The atmosphere was ripe for this sort of media trip up, given the subject matter and that the outlet was forced to apologize for leaving out key details about some of the people featured in this documentary about Gaza. You cannot make this up, though given how the media have willingly shoveled down Hamas propaganda, it was only a matter of time before a major journalistic work would get hit with a broadside like this.
Notoriously anti-Israel BBC produced some cockamamie left-wing production about Palestinians surviving the Gaza warzone. One of the stars was the son of a top Hamas official, which forced the network to issue an apology, with more calls demanding an investigation into this oversight last week (via Deadline):
The BBC has apologized and added a clarification to its Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone documentary that featured the son of a Hamas minister, after nearly 50 entertainment figures sent a letter to the corporation to urge an investigation.
The BBC “had not been informed of this information” by the independent producers behind the doc, the corporation added, following backlash from dozens of senior entertainment figures including former BBC controller Danny Cohen, J.K. Rowling’s agent Neil Blair, agent Anita Land and ex-Got Talent commissioner Claudia Rosencrantz.
The letter was sent to Director General Tim Davie, content chief Charlotte Moore and BBC News boss Deborah Turness earlier today, urging an investigation after the documentary about children in Gaza that failed to declare that the lead contributor was the son of Hamas royalty.
In a statement in the past few minutes, the BBC said that since the transmission of the doc three days ago it had “become aware of the family connections of the film’s narrator, a child called Abdullah.” “We’ve 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,” the statement added. “We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film.”
For future repeats and on iPlayer, the film will now clarify: “The 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. The production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah.” The statement has been added to the BBC’s Corrections and Clarifications page and the BBC said it will also respond to the letter directly.
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Alarms were first raised … by investigative journalist David Collier on X about one of the show’s narrators, the teenager named Abdullah Al-Yazouri, who is the son of Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri, a senior official in Hamas, which governs Gaza. The documentary, which comes from Emmy-winning filmmakers Roberts and Yousef Hammash, told the stories of four young people living in Gaza. It aired earlier this week and remains on iPlayer, with a repeat scheduled for tonight. Clips have aired on BBC children’s news show Newsround.
The letter, which can be read in full below, asked the bosses a string of questions including whether the BBC knew that the narrator and principal contributor of the documentary was the son of a senior leader of Hamas…
The media has taken the Gaza death tolls as gospel, despite all figures coming from Hamas propagandists. The terrorist group runs the government; everything they say is a lie. BBC deserved to be put through the woodchipper for this, as does the Associated Press, which had the gall to say that Shiri Bibas, an Israeli hostage, and her children died in captivity. They were murdered, you thick prats.
