BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film 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 complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
