British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
