BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions 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 the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."