British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
