British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
