BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
