British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
