British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have 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 administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
