BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
