BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into 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 serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
