BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
