BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator 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 previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement 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 factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
