BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
