British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
