BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit 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 confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."