BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk 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 film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
