British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
