British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers 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 public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
