BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
