British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."