British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement 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 factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
