British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
