BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."