British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
