British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
