British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line 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 factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
