British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
