BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
