British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
