British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
