BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
