British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
