British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
