BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
