British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
