British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
