BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
