British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."