BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
