British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
