British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
