British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
