BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
