British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
