British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
