British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
