British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
