BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
