British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
