British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
