British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."