British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom 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 previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
