BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
