BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
