BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled 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 significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
