BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
