BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child 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 concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."