BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, 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 its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
