BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
