BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
