British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
