British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
