British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
