BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
