British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."