British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology 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 finalised."
