British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
