British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight 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 have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
