BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
