BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
