BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
