BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled 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 voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
