BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
