British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
