BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
