British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
