British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
