British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
