BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
