BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance 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 truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
