BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
