British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
