British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
