British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
