British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
