British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed 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 found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
