BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
