BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
