BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
