British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
