BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
