British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
