British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
