BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance 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 accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
