BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
