BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
