BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."