BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
