British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
