British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to 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 penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
