British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."