British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
