BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."