British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees 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 the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
