BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, 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 Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
