BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
