British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
