British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
