British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
