BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
