BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."