BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
