BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
