BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
