BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last 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 factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
