British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement 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 aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
