BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
