BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
