BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
