British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
