British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
