BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit 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 finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."