British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
