BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
