British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
