British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
