British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."