BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
