British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant 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.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
