British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator 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, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."