British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
