BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
