British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
