British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
