BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."