British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
