British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
