British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
