BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
