British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
