British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
