British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
