BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
