British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
