BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
