BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions 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 aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
