British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
