British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
