BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
