BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
