BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance 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 truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
