BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to 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 head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
