BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
