BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
