British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
