BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
