British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
