British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."