British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results 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 aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
