British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
