British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
