BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
