BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
