BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
