British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
