British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
