British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
