British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
