British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded 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 audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
