BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
