British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
