British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
