BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
