BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."