BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
