British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
