British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
