BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
