British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
