British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
