British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
