British media regulator says BBC ‘seriously breached’ rules for documentary about son of Hamas terrorist

Britain’s media regulator found the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in “serious breaches” of its rules after it emerged that the son of a Hamas terrorist was featured in a documentary.

On Friday, the Office of Communications (OfCom), an independent agency overseen by the British Parliament, released the findings of its investigation into ‘Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone’, concluding that the BBC’s ‘failure’ in revealing that the narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah, was the son of a prominent Hamas official, was ‘materially misleading’.

“Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster like the BBC,” Ofcom says. said. “This failure had the potential to undermine the significantly high level of trust that the public would have placed in a factual BBC program on the Israel-Gaza war.”

“As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement outlining our findings against her on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed,” it added.

BBC REPORT FINDS GAZA DOCUMENTARY NARRATED BY HAMAS TERRORIST’S SON BROUGHT EDITORIAL STANDARDS

The BBC has accepted Ofcom’s findings and ruling.

“Ofcom’s ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston’s review that there was a significant deficiency in the documentary in relation to the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy, which reflect rule 2.2 of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code,” a BBC spokesperson said in a statement. report published by the outlet.

“We have apologized for this and we fully accept Ofcom’s decision. We will comply with the sanction once the date and wording is final,” the spokesperson continued.

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The BBC noted that Ofcom had not imposed sanctions since 2009 and that it had been forced to issue an apology by Ofcom since 2009.

The controversy began in February when ‘Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone’ aired, which followed four young people aged 10 to 24 in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas.

The film quickly drew criticism after investigative journalist David Collier revealed that Abdullah was in fact the son of Hamas’ deputy agriculture minister.

The BBC has removed the documentary ‘Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone’ from its streaming platform. (Getty Images)

The BBC apologized and later pulled the documentary from its streaming platform.

“Since the broadcast of our documentary on Gaza, the BBC has become aware of the family connections of the film’s narrator, a child named Abdullah. We have promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information we add some more detail to the film before it is rebroadcast. We apologize for the omission of that detail from the original film,” the BBC said at the time in a statement.

In July, the outlet concluded that the documentary violated editorial standards.

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Internal investigations revealed that the BBC was not aware of Abdullah’s parentage prior to the documentary’s broadcast, but three members of the production company Hoyo Films did know that the boy’s father was a Hamas official.

However, the investigation criticized the broadcaster for not being “sufficiently proactive” with its pre-broadcast due diligence, and warned it of a “lack of critical oversight of unanswered or partially answered questions” about the documentary prior to broadcast.

The review claimed that the use of the Hamas-linked narrator had no bearing on the film’s content, but said the boy’s inclusion was “inappropriate”.

“We own where we made mistakes, find out what went wrong, act on the findings and have said we are sorry,” Deborah Turnness, CEO of BBC News, told BBC Radio 4 at the time.

The BBC apologized and conducted its own investigation, concluding that the documentary did not meet editorial standards. (Reuters/Toby Melville)

The BBC pledged to take steps to address the failure, including issuing new guidance on the use of narrators in documentaries focusing on controversial topics, creating a new leadership role focusing on documentaries and a new review process that will ensure that “no long, high-risk programs can be formally launched until all possible compliance considerations have been considered and listed.”

David Spector and Lindsay Kornick of Fox News contributed to this report.

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