BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
