BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
