BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
