British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
