BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
