BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."