British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
