BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
