BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
