British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
