British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards 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 probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
