BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
