BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
