British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust 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 the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
