British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
