BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
