British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority 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 chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
