British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
