British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
