BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
