British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
