British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
