BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
