BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
