BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
