BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
