BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son 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 determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
