Stumble

The two-stage BBC back-tracking on the documentary "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone" demonstrates a lack of surefootedness that will embarrass Editor in Chief Tim Davie. 

The programme was previewed in detail on the BBC website on Saturday 15th March  February, in an article by one of its directors, the award-winning Jamie Roberts, who gave details of the child 'presenters'  Abdullah and Zakaria. It was first shown on Monday 17th on BBC2, then repeated late on Wednesday 19th. But by 7.00am on Tuesday 18th, journalist-on-a-mission David Collier was already calling it a "Hamas Propaganda Pantomime". 

Clearly the first 'crisis' meeting inside the BBC decided the programme was strong and thorough enough to stay up on iPlayer with a 'clarification' that Abdullah was the son of a minister in the Hamas administration. The techniques behind "Verify" clearly didn't spot that Abdullah had also featured in a Channel 4 News item back in November 2023, with apparently a different father.  

Today, the programme has been removed from iPlayer, which should have happened first time round. The BBC commissioners should have realised that using award-winning directors doesn't make a programme fireproof in the red-hot scrutiny of this conflict.