British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
