British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
