BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions 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 corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
