BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, 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 language are determined."
