BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
