BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
