British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
