British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
