British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
