BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
