BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
