British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
