British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
