BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
