BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
