British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
