BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees 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 February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
