British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment 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 findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
