British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
