British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
