BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
