British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film 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 regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
