BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."