BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
