British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
