British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
