BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
