BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
