British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
