British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom 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 earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
