BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects 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 adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
