British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
