BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
