British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
