BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
