British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
