British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
