British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
