BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
