British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
