BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
