BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
