British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
