BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error 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 Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
