British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
