British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
