British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
