BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
