BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
