British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
