BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
