BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
