BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."