BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
