BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
