BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
