British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
