British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
