BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
