British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
