British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
