BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
