BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
