BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
