British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
