BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
