British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
