BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
