British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
