British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
