British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
