British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
