British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
