British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
