British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
