British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, 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 complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
