BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
