British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
