BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
