BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
