British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."