British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
