BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
