BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
