BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
