British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator 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 BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight 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 agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
