British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
