British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog 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, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
