British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."