BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
