BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
