BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
