British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious 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 ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
