BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
