BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
