British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
