British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
