BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
