British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
