British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
