British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
