British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
