BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
