BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
