BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, 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 full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."