British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
