BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
