British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
