British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
