British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
