British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
