BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
