British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
