British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
