BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
