BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary 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 agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
