BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
