BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
