British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
