BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
