BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
