BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
