British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
