British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement 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 reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
