BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
