BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme 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 BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
