BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
