British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
