British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
