British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
