British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
