BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
