BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
