BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
