British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
