BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme 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 infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
