BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
