British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice 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 the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-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 the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
