British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach 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 schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement 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 factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
