BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
