After complaints that a featured child was the son of a Palestinian government official, the corporation removed the documentary pending 'due diligence'

Back in 2003, the BBC aired a documentary on Israel’s nuclear programme, titled Israel’s Secret Weapon. Israeli leaders hit the roof and banned its officials from appearing on the BBC.

The documentary was spot on. Israel was embarrassed at having its nuclear arsenal exposed when Iraq was being invaded for a non-existent stash of weapons of mass destruction.

I asked a senior BBC official at the time how relations with Israel were panning out. “For a country that wants to influence news coverage, boycotting us is a strange way of doing things,” was the reply, seemingly unruffled by Israeli antics. The BBC did not cave in, and Israel lifted its boycott.

Twenty-five years later, the BBC has lost any semblance of a spine on Israel. Last week, it pulled a documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone from its online streaming platform. The corporation said it would carry out a “due diligence” exercise before it could be allowed to air again.

  • ohulancutash@feddit.ukEnglish
    48·
    10 hours ago

    It pulled a documentary where the producers had failed to disclose the narrator’s personal connection to Hamas, a possible breach of editorial guidelines. Nothing to do with Israel. They’d have done it with any subject. And have.

    • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 hours ago

      It pulled a documentary where the producers had failed to disclose the narrator’s personal connection to Hamas

      and how is that relevant?

      • ohulancutash@feddit.ukEnglish
        32·
        6 hours ago

        It was lazy drivel twisting a situation to make an argument.

        It ends by asking;

        Would the BBC consider for one moment killing a documentary because a narrator or camera operator was a relative of an Israeli settler?

        Which is disingenuous. If the author had any knowledge of the situation they’re happy to exploit for clicks, they’d have read the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines. They’d have written the answer instead of “just asking questions”.

        The issue at hand was that the production company hadn’t disclosed the kid’s relationship to a senior Hamas official to the BBC. Had it done so, the documentary would have gone through an extra layer of vetting and fact-checking before being cleared for Tx. Just as if the narrator was related to a settler. Or for any key contributor to a programme depicting contentious events who is connected to one of the parties to such events in a non-evident way.

        Having failed to do so, the producers were in breach of the editorial guidelines. The article goes on wistfully talking about how the BBC is respected around the world (so how could this happen etc). The reason for the respect is its editorial guidelines and how rigidly it enforces it.

        I don’t see the logic of bashing the BBC for enforcing editorial guidelines while also waxing nostalgic about how the BBC used to be able to enforce editorial guidelines. It makes me think the author isn’t really interested about due impartiality at all.

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
          1·
          1 hour ago

          The BCC happily makes videos about IDF soldiers giving fake testimonies.

          The minister of agriculture is irrelevant. You are grasping at straws with your new account.