BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
