British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
