BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
