British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."