BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
