British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "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 BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
