BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."