British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."