BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts 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 audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
