British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
