BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
