BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
