BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
