British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
