BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
