BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
