British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film 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".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."