British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
