British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
