British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
