BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
