BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "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 broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
