BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
