BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
