British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
