British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."