BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
