British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
