BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
