British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
