BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
