BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
