BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
