BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
