BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
