British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
