British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
