BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
