BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
