BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
