BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
