BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
