BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
