BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
