British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
