BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
