BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose 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 Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
