British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination 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 truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
