BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings 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 aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
