British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, 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 the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
