BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
