BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
