BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions 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 clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
