BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
