BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
