BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
