British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
