British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
