BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
