British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
