British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
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 son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
