BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line 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 accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
