British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
