British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
