British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
