British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
