British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
