British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
