British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
