British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
