BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
