British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
