BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
