British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian 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 judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
