BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
