British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error 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 agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."