British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
