British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
