British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
