British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
