BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
