BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
