BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."