BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
