British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, 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 Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
