BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
