British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
