BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards 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 probe 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 previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
