British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
