British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
