BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
