BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
