BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."