BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
