British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary 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 the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put 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The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
