BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
