British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
