British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
