BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
