British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
