BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
