BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
