British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
