BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
