BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
