British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
