British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
