BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
