BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
