British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
