BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
