British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
