BBC Chief Admits 'Significant Failing' Over Documentary About Gaza Children

The BBC's director general has admitted the broadcaster made a "significant failing" over a documentary about children in Gaza, after an internal investigation found that the programme breached editorial guidelines for accuracy.

- Michael Savage

Senior BBC figures have acknowledged that programme-makers failed to ask the right questions about the making of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. An internal investigation found viewers should have been made aware of the "critical information" that the narrator, Abdullah al-Yazouri, 13, was the son of a Hamas official. However, the inquiry found no other breaches of guidelines in its production, including impartiality.

It concluded no outside interests had "inappropriately impacted on the programme" and that no payments had been made to people under financial sanctions.

Tim Davie and the BBC are under serious pressure after a series of incidents and have faced repeated condemnation from the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy.

In her latest broadside at Davie, Nandy said there had been a "series of catastrophic failures" by the BBC in recent weeks. Responding to the Gaza documentary findings, she said the BBC "must ensure that such errors are never repeated".