BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
