BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
