BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
