British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
