British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
