BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
