British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
