BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
