British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
