British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
