BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
