British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
