BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
