BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
