British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."