BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship 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 undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
