BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
