British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster 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 regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
