British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
