BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."