British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees 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 family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
