British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
