BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
