British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
