British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
