British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
