BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
